Gaming venues such as casinos have long known to provide live table games such as Blackjack, Pai Gow, Baccarat, Craps, Poker and other games. A common aspect of these games is a live dealer(s) and live players occupying positions about a physical gaming table. The gaming table in most cases includes a surface bearing a layout printed with information such as designating player positions, betting areas to control and identify the propositions wagered on by the players and the placement of game pieces such as playing cards. To play the game players must find an open position at the table from which to participate.
In many modern casino venues with live table and electronic machine gaming, players may enroll in a player loyalty club. The club is administered through a communication network including one or more servers hosting player data. Upon enrollment, these clubs provide a loyalty (or player's) card for the player to identify himself/herself to the system. Enrollment may include a player establishing an electronic account to be a repository for electronic funds. In some cases the account is funded by the player presenting value such as cash, chips, electronic transfer of funds from a financial institution or credit card company or some other form of value. To wager on live table games players must present casino-compatible, physical gaming chips or cash, which are converted by the dealer into physical gaming chips.
In relation to these table games, it has been known to provide a primary game bonus feature where the bonus is based upon the play/outcome of the base game. For example, Snow, U.S. Pat. No. 6,808,173 discloses a Blackjack base game with a primary bonus game side bet proposition which can be fulfilled based upon the player's cards and the dealer's face up card. Snow, U.S. Pat. No. 6,789,801 discloses a Baccarat base game with a primary game side wager for a bonus based upon the numerical difference between the winning and losing Banker or Player hands. Snow et al U.S. Pat. No. 9,126,102 teaches a four-card Poker game with a bonus wager. Suttle et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,836,553 describes a table game having a primary bonus game with a progressive bonus feature and requiring a side wager.
In the past, for many table games, the application of progressive jackpots was a challenge since there was no mechanism to receive progressive side wagers for allocation to the jackpot and to memorialize participation on the progressive proposition. In Jones et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,964, an early attempt at a solution discloses a table game providing a progressive jackpot for a table game, which includes a token acceptor associated with each player position. Insertion of a physical token indicated the player's participation and provided a processor with information to increment a progressive prize. The table game of Caribbean Stud™ is a commercial offering including this feature. Kelly et al U.S. Pat. No. 9,142,084, issued Sep. 22, 2015 and titled “WAGER RECOGNITION SYSTEM,” the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference, discloses an optical bet detection unit for a gaming table which can be used to detect a progressive participation wager.
Halter et al US 2016/0217657 filed Mar. 24, 2016 and titled SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF LINKING GAMING STATIONS,” the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference, teaches a system for linking progressive prizes between gaming tables offering different games and providing a spinning wheel feature when a qualifying base game triggering event has occurred.
It has also been known to provide promotions toward the play of table games. These promotions are in the form of a printed voucher or coupon which may, for example, double a table game wager, e.g. if the player wagers $5 the voucher may act to double the wager to $10. The use of paper vouchers restricts the nature and utility of such instruments.
Some drawbacks to table gaming has been the nature and type of bonusing which can be provided to attract players, the inability of a player to access electronic funds for conversion into physical gaming chips and the inability of a player to remotely accept a table game promotion and reserve a seat at the corresponding gaming table to redeem the promotion. A further drawback is that players could not wager upon another player that other player will, for example, hit the jackpot.